Embracing Blogs as Publicity

In recent years blogging has become very popular. Sometimes it seems like everyone has a blog about one topic or another. It comes in handy as a search tool, since you can google virtually anything and someone has written about it personally and included many helpful details first hand. People turn to blogs these days, writing and reading them, for many different reasons, one main one being advice.

With so many blogs out there it cane be hard to determine which ones are actually trustworthy and whether you should believe everything you read on them. You do have to be able to discern when a blog will be helpful or not. But when you can tell a blog is trustworthy, and trusted among it’s readers, that is when they can be a great for your publicity.

Many businesses have begun to embrace bloggers more and more as they see the positive effect it can have on their business. Bloggers tend to be very passionate about whatever the topic of their blog is. They tend to be the type of people who love to share their opinions and let people know about their experiences. They tend to be outgoing and open to trying new things, if it has the possibility of an interesting blog post their readers will enjoy.

Because of this, inviting bloggers in to your business can be a very worthwhile move if you’re looking for cheap publicity and to grow your customer base. This can be done two different ways- either inviting a bunch of bloggers in at once for a ‘blogger get-together/party’ event, or invite them in one on one for individual experiences. Once they are there, make sure they have a wonderful time and get to fully experience everything your business has to offer. Yes, this may require putting a bit of money down one time, in order to offer them free service or small favors to take home afterward, but it is worth it for the positive image they will have in their mind of you and your business and they will inevitably become repeat customers themselves, as well as brand ambassadors touting your praise to their friends and followers, resulting in more business later on.

I recently attended a blog event at one of my restaurant clients in which they provided a small tasting menu specifically for these bloggers. It included six dishes with a description of each by the owner and a chance to meet the chef, owner and manager. There was a group of tables all set up for the bloggers before they arrived, so they were able to enjoy an evening of chatting and getting to know each other or catching up with each other if they knew each other from previous events. At the end of the night they were sent home with some goodies like a shirt from the restaurant, a colorful rubber whisk, a recipe for the restaurant’s famous peanut butter pancakes and a small bag of the peanut butter chips required for said pancakes. Not only did the bloggers get to blog about the dinner and the food they tried, but they have the potential to write another post in the future about baking the pancakes if they choose to!

If nothing else, having bloggers write about your business increases your web presence just by having your business name on multiple sites. Beyond that, bloggers are taste-makers and have loyal followers who trust their opinions. It makes sense to find some who are interested in your product, build relationships with them and encourage them to follow your business. They’ll appreciate it and prospective customers who feel better visiting your business after seeing what to expect from someone else online will appreciate it.